Profile: Agent Ben Buggeman is currently assigned to MTF Delta-88 ("The Townies"), acting as the Foundation's presence in River City. Under the guise of an independent private investigator, his main responsibilities are gathering information and maintaining awareness of anomalous activity (and parties involved in such) in River City and the surrounding region. Additional duties include providing support, when possible, for other Foundation operatives.

Initial assessments at time of recruitment projected that Ben Buggeman had potential to be a valuable Foundation asset. However, a history of minor disciplinary incidents combined with an otherwise unremarkable record has forestalled any significant advancement of his career. Despite satisfactory performance through multiple assignments and inter-departmental transfers, common concensus among past supervisors is that he lacks the dedication or ambition required to excel.

Noted history of alcoholism and drug use precludes them from standard avenues of promotion available at this time. However, as performance evaluations and peer reviews have generally characterized them as a capable operative and loyal to the Foundation, termination protocols have been deferred. This decision may be reviewed at a later date.

His current assignment has been deemed adequately suitable, based on its relatively marginal importance and demands.

In case anyone is more interested in me the writer, this will be the part where I try to offer some personal commentary on the things I've posted to the site. If I were a good author this would be insightful and interesting. Instead it's probably more like the written equivalent of a DVD commentary track where I just describe what's happening on the screen while it happens.

Sidenotes- I might be considered knowledgeable on: small marine vessel operation, SCUBA diving, radio communication protocols, and generally thinking out the tactical/practical and bureaucratic aspects of articles. If you're looking for a consult in any of those matters (or maybe just to generally enhance professionalism with word choice / phrasing in an article), I do like to be helpful.

If you want to contact me for anything, you can send a wikiPM to Boogey_Man23. Or look out for me on the #Site19 IRC/Chat as BoogeyMan23 (no underscore there).

This is the first article I posted to the site, and was my major contribution to There's No Me In Team's effort in 2016's MTF Team Contest. Great team name.

The article is a GOI Format version of SCP-2463, which Dr Solo already had a draft of when I started. My aim was to take the facts as presented through the Foundation's scope, and expand on it from a business/history oriented perspective.

One of the things I liked most about writing as MC&D was trying to use a certain business-professional tone, a bit of a departure from the clinical tone of SCP articles. In my mind: MC&D employees, brokers especially, know the importance of phrasing and communicate almost as much by context and choice of words as the message itself. It's a world where an ambiguous implication can convey more than an explicit statement, where deceptions and veiled truths and are interpreted and responded to in kind.

Also made reference of a "Forum Tenebris", because I like to headcanon that GOI Marshall, Carter & Dark Ltd. has actually existed, in one form or another, throughout much of history.

Fun fact: When I first joined the SCP Foundation wiki, I didn't really expect I would contribute content myself. If not for that team contest being held when it was, and me being drafted by team captain DrSinful, I maybe never would have. But I did make a sandbox page for myself, mostly for learning wiki syntax but also to practice writing in the SCP style. The application form document was an example of that, and when DrSinful pitched the concept of MTF Mu-3 I tried to plug that vision into my template. We ended up submitting it as an in-universe document to explain the Force's M.O. and set up the reader for the rest of the Operation: Free Market story.

The documents themselves came first, with a rough outline of a tale to accompany that I wouldn't have gotten done before contest deadline. Fortunately, my teammate DrStranger picked it up and ran with it. They turned the outline into a working draft of the tale, I made a few changes and edits, and we were able to include it in our submissions. After the contest was over I split the pages, so the paperwork is now seperate from the prose narrative.

Another contest entry I submitted on behalf of "There's No Me In Team", this is essentially a brief recap/review of the events which took place in the tale Broker-Bailer-Grifter-THIEF.

Looking back, I think my intention was to leave the future of MTF Mu-3 uncertain: whether they would be allowed to operate as envisioned at their conception, continue working with limited resources, or be disbanded entirely.

I'd like this MTF to see more action in the future. Though as of right now, I guess their status is undetermined.

So I'm a big fan of mystery, noir, detective stories, etc. I'd been on a big reading kick of stuff in that style at the time, and wanted to try and merge some elements of those genres into the realm of the Foundation. I also thought it'd be a fitting and entertaining place to stick my own self-insert-kinda charcter.

This tale marks the debut of Agent Ben Buggeman himself. In hindsight, I feel I should have put more time and consideration into the characterization. He probably comes off more violent/homicidal than I'd intended him to be overall.

The more subtle, underlying characterization (which grew from feedback/ideas received during the review process for this tale) is that: while he admires and wants to be like the classic hard-boiled detective charcaters of that era, he really can't live up to the part. Even though he fits certain superficial aspects of the role, there are other more vital componenents he lacks.

I hope to develop them into a more rounded and potentially compelling character through future appearances.

This tale began to develop while I was reading the SCP it's centred around, SCP-2454. Having properties that so greatly limited the Foundation's ability to work around it, I started to consider just what kind of measures that the personnel would have to take in order to do their job.

So I examined the obstacles to exploration and research, and thought of ways that each one could be overcome or worked around. After putting that thought and effort into designing a hypothetical operating procedure I decided I would come up with a way to build around it and make a story.

Ultimately it's just a kind of glimpse at a day at work in the Foundation, briefly visiting each of the characters involved. With an understated surprise sad ending.

Here's me trying really hard to get something like a fridge-horror reaction from the reader when they realize what's happened. I read SCP-1087 and thought it would be great to use for the purpose of a misdirect. A couple challenges inherent to presenting it the way I wanted were inventing a scenario where the MTF would have to be in the area before finding out what they're there for, and in keeping the POV mainly limited to a character who is a step removed from the real action.

I originally wrote and posted this story something like a year prior, but it ended up deleted. I took those remains and kept them buried in my sandbox while focusing on other work to develop my writing ability. Eventually I pulled it back out to rewrite it, and just seemed to have better luck with addressing a bunch of the issues from the first time around. Maybe not all of them, but enough to improve the tale.

So don't always scrap your failed drafts, kids! With time and effort, they just might make it in the big time.

This tale was written in response to the 'Westrin's Log of Anomalous Objects Writing Challenge'! I was originally thinking about doing a series of even briefer looks at several different objects, but then picked out a single one and focused on expanding it.

Most of this was written within a very short span of time, much different from my other work. I also posted it without feedback beforehand (Shame!), and in its original version Researcher Perez's conclusion of the assessment was more like an oversight caused by being exhausted/overworked. Responding to a suggestion in the comments led me to consider if maybe she had an inkling, but then intentionally overlooked the possibility. From there, maybe even if she had a bit of something to do with the creation of the situation from the start. If the original story conveyed a grave but understandable mistake, the updated version would call into question just how understandable or innocent such a mistake could have been.

While trying in part to preserve what was originally there, I made edits intending to subtly cast more suspicion on Perez. My intention being to leave a few possible interpretations, without fully committing to any one of them necessarily being the truth. Maybe she really didn't make any connection at all. But then again, she never liked Wren; maybe she figured it out at some point and kept it to herself. Or… Maybe it's no conincidence that she's taken on all of Wren's workfiles; and maybe those baseless rumours didn't just come from nowhere.

I'm really pleased with how it changed on-the-fly (and very grateful to have been able to make it happen).

The pictures of myself are just selfies. The one with the fire, I think I actually took the picture (so that's probably not me in it).

I gave Buggeman a background that includes MTF Gamma-6 because I used to work as a SCUBA diver myself. So, if you happen to need a consultant on writing something that involves boats, the ocean, or underwater activities and stuff then maybe I can help!

I made up MTF Delta-88 to basically be like a bush league version of MTF Pi-1; fulfilling a similar role in smaller cities that don't warrant the "City Slickers" attention, but still require some form of local Foundation presence. Putting the character in position for the series of tales I would eventually like to write about them.